Gary Schroen
This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed. It is classified as a stub, and categories require improvement. lead Gary C. Schroen is a former Central Intelligence Agency field officer who was in charge of the initial CIA incursion into Afghanistan in September 2001 to topple the Taliban regime and to destroy Al Qaeda. Schroen worked with the Agency for over 30 years, rising from case officer to Deputy Chief, Near East Division, Directorate of Operations in 1999, a post he held through 2001. During his career, Schroen served in numerous posts, including Station Chief in Kabul, Afghanistan (but working out of Pakistan) in the late 1980s. From 1992-1994, Schroen worked at CIA headquarters in Langley, controlling Iranian operations. Schroen was the chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan from 1996 until mid-1999. During this period, he directed CIA operations to find and capture Osama bin Laden, and began renewing relationships with the Mujahideen commanders who fought the Soviets in the Soviet-Afghan War. Schroen's experiences in Afghanistan prior to September 11th were chronicled in Steve Coll's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. As a result of his experience working with the Northern Alliance during the course of his career, Schroen developed a friendship with Northern Alliance commander General Ahmad Shah Massoud. Although he planned to retire, Schroen was recalled after the September 11th attacks to lead a CIA team into Afghanistan. The seven-officer team, which included renowned covert operative Billy Waugh, flew into Afghanistan on September 26, and began securing support among the Northern Alliance shortly before the arrival of US Army Special Forces ODA 555. He has since written the book [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0891418725 First In], illustrating his Afghan experiences. Schroen was one of several inspirations for The Path to 9/11 character CIA Operative "Kirk", whom writers claimed was a compilation based on several actual people. Timeline 1997: CIA Re-opens Afghanistan Operations Special CIA paramilitary teams enter Afghanistan again in 1997. POST, 11/18/2001 Gary Schroen, head of the CIA’s Pakistan office during the late 1990’s, will later comment, “We had connections to the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud’s group of Tajik fighters up in the north. The CIA was sending teams into northern Afghanistan from ‘97 up until about 2000 to meet with Massoud’s people, to try to get them involved.” FRONTLINE, 1/20/2006 (The CIA’s anti-Soviet covert operations officially ended in January 1992. 2004, PP. 233 ) Around 1999 there will be a push to recruit more agents capable of operating or traveling in Afghanistan. Many locals will be recruited, but apparently none is close to bin Laden (see 1999). This problem is not fixed in succeeding years. POST, 2/22/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 3/24/2004 Entity Tags: Gary C. Schroen, Central Intelligence Agency, Northern Alliance, Osama bin Laden, Taliban Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline December 18-20, 1998: US Locates Bin Laden but Declines to Strike The governor’s mansion in Kandahar, Afghanistan. CBC On December 18, 2000, CIA receives a tip that bin Laden will be staying overnight on December 20 at the governor’s mansion in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Missile strikes are readied against him. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 130-131 Gary Schroen, head of the CIA’s Pakistan office, e-mails CIA headquarters with the message, “Hit him tonight—we may not get another chance.” However, principal advisers to President Clinton agree not to recommend a strike because of doubts about the intelligence and worries about collateral damage. The military estimates the attacks will kill about 200 people, presumably most of them innocent bystanders. Schroen will later recall, “It struck me as rather insane, frankly. They decided not to attack bin Laden because he was in a building in fairly close proximity to a mosque. And they were afraid that some of the shrapnel was going to hit the mosque and somehow offend the Muslim world, and so they decided not to shoot on that occasion. That’s the kind of reason for not shooting that the policy maker, anyway, came up with endlessly.” COMMISSION, 3/24/2004; CBC, 9/12/2006 Later intelligence appears to show that bin Laden left before the strike could be readied, but some aware of the intelligence felt it was a chance that should have been taken anyway. COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 130-131 In the wake of this incident, officials attempt to find alternatives to cruise missiles, such a precision strike aircraft. However, US Central Command Chief General Anthony Zinni is apparently opposed to deployment of these aircraft near Afghanistan, and they are not deployed. COMMISSION, 3/24/2004 Entity Tags: Clinton administration, Anthony Zinni, Osama bin Laden, Gary C. Schroen Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline Early April 2001: CIA Meets Northern Alliance Leader in Paris, Receives Warning of Major Al-Qaeda Attack CIA managers Gary Schroen, of the Near East division, and Richard Blee, responsible for Alec Station, the agency’s bin Laden unit, meet Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud in Paris, France. 2004, PP. 560 Massoud, who is in Europe to address the European Parliament (see April 6, 2001), tells Schroen and Blee “that his own intelligence had learned of al-Qaeda’s intention to perform a terrorist act against the United States that would be vastly greater than the bombings of the American embassies in East Africa.” 2006, PP. 337 Declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents from November 2001 will say that Massoud has gained “limited knowledge… regarding the intentions of al-Qaeda to perform a terrorist act against the US on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.” They will further point out he may have been assassinated two days before 9/11 (see September 9, 2001) because he “began to warn the West.” (ISLAMABAD), 9/13/2003; AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 9/14/2003 Schroen and Blee assure Massoud that, although he has been visited less by the CIA recently, they are still interested in working with him, and they will continue to make regular payments of several hundred thousand dollars each month. Commenting on the military situation in Afghanistan, Massoud says his defenses will hold for now, but the Northern Alliance is doing badly and no longer has the strength to counterattack. 2004, PP. 561-2 Entity Tags: Rich B., Gary C. Schroen, Defense Intelligence Agency, Lawrence Wright, Alec Station, Ahmed Shah Massoud, Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: CIA Near East Division Employees Think Bin Laden to Blame for Attacks In the CIA’s Near East Division (NE) front office suite on the sixth floor of the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, everyone thinks Osama bin Laden is to blame as soon as they see the second aircraft hitting the World Trade Center. Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in the NE office suite, where several people have been staring at the television showing the burning North Tower. As Schroen later recalls, “We were getting calls from CTC CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, friends of the CTC in and around the building, that the World Trade Center, one of the towers had been struck.” According to Schroen, there are “like, 30 of us standing around,” and “as soon as the second aircraft smashed into the second tower, everyone said, ‘Bin Laden. It was bin Laden.… This is the attack that bin Laden’s been promising.’” 2005, PP. 12-14; NPR, 5/2/2005; PBS FRONTLINE, 1/20/2006 When CIA Director George Tenet learned of the first WTC attack, he reportedly said immediately that he thought bin Laden was responsible (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). 2002, PP. 4 Entity Tags: Gary C. Schroen, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline September 16, 2001: Cheney Vows US Will Respond to 9/11 with ‘Dark Side’ of Intelligence Methods In a television interview, Vice President Cheney is asked how the US will respond to the 9/11 attacks. He first replies that there will be a military response. But he adds an oblique comment indicating the secrecy in which he and the administration intend to operate after the 9/11 attacks: “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” THE PRESS, 9/16/2001; UNGER, 2007, PP. 221 In 2006, former CIA official Gary Schroen will be asked about Cheney’s comment, and he replies: “My impression at the time was that the administration was trying to send a message, and certainly CIA leadership was trying to send a message, that the gloves were off. I think what Cheney was probably saying was, we’re going to do things like assassination operations; we were going to go into places and not try to capture these guys, but just kill them, and that… there would be a lot of people who would object to those kind of tactics.” FRONTLINE, 1/20/2006 In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will write, “Many interpreted Cheney’s vague remarks to have been a reference to brutal interrogation techniques.” 2007, PP. 154 Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Charlie Savage, Gary C. Schroen Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, Civil Liberties September 26, 2001: CIA Advance Team Prepares for Afghanistan Bombing Campaign Gary Schroen. CBC Long-time CIA operative Gary Schroen is assigned on September 13, 2001 to lead a small team into Afghanistan to link up with the Northern Alliance and prepare for the US bombing campaign. His team totalling seven officers and three air crew land in Afghanistan on this day. This team will be the only US forces in the country for nearly a month, until special forces begin arriving on October 19 (see October 19, 2001). Schroen will later comment, “I was surprised at how slow the US military was to get themselves in a position where they could come and join us.” During this month, Schroen’s team gives the Northern Alliance money and assurances that the US is serious with their attack plans. They also survey battlefields with GPS units to determine where opposing forces are located. FRONTLINE, 1/20/2006 Entity Tags: Gary C. Schroen, Northern Alliance Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan September 26, 2001: First CIA Operatives Arrive in Afghanistan to Launch War against Taliban Veteran CIA officer Gary Schroen and his team of CIA operatives known as “Jawbreaker” is helicoptered into the Panjshir Valley of northeastern Afghanistan. This area, about 70 miles north of Kabul, is controlled by the Northern Alliance. The team of about 10 operatives carries communications equipment so they can directly communicate with CIA headquarters back in the US. Schroen also carries a suitcase containing $3 million in non-sequential $100 bills. That same evening, Schroen meets with Muhammed Arif Sawari, known as Engineer Aref, head of the Northern Alliance’s intelligence service. He gives Aref $500,000 and promises much more money and support soon. The Jawbreaker team will remain the only US forces on the ground in Afghanistan until about the middle of October. POST, 11/18/2002 Before the Jawbreaker team deploys, J. Cofer Black, the CIA’s Washington coordinator for Jawbreaker, gave the men instructions that author Jeremy Scahill will later call “direct and macabre.” Black told the men: “I don’t want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead.… They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden’s head to the president. I promised him I would do that” (see September 19, 2001). Schroen will later say it was the first time in his career he had been ordered to assassinate an enemy rather than attempt a capture. 8/20/2009 Entity Tags: Cofer Black, Northern Alliance, Muhammed Arif Sawari, Gary C. Schroen, Central Intelligence Agency, Jeremy Scahill Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan Late September-Late October 2001: US Military Slow in Entering Afghanistan until Rumsfeld Makes Power Grab By late September 2001, the CIA covert plan to conquer Afghanistan is in place but it needs the US military to work. CIA official Gary Schroen will later recall, “We were there for just about a month by ourselves in the valley. We were the only Americans in the country for almost a month.” According to a PBS Frontline documentary, at some point around the middle of October, “there was a fiery NSC Security Council meeting. The CIA had been complaining Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was dragging his feet in Afghanistan. It was said Rumsfeld didn’t like taking orders from the CIA.” Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong will later say, “Rumsfeld went to the president and said, ‘The CIA has to work for me, or this isn’t going to work.’” President Bush finally agrees and places Rumsfeld in charge of the Afghanistan war. A short time later, on October 20, the first US Special Forces are put into action in Afghanistan, calling in precision air strikes. The Taliban fold in the face of the attack and the capital of Kabul will fall in mid-November. But according to Schroen, “I was absolutely convinced that that would happen and that the Taliban would break quickly. That could have happened in October, early October,” had the US military arrived to assist the CIA sooner. FRONTLINE, 6/20/2006 Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Gary C. Schroen, Michael DeLong, National Security Council, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan 2002: Iraq, Not Afghanistan, Dominates National Security Council Agenda CIA official Gary Schoen will later say, “I can remember trying to take issues about Afghanistan to the National Security Council (NSC) during 2002 and early 2003 and being told: ‘It’s off the agenda for today. Iraq is taking the whole agenda.’ Things that we desperately needed to do for Afghanistan were just simply pushed aside by concerns over in Iraq. There just wasn’t the time.” FRONTLINE, 1/20/2006 A former senior NSC official will similarly recall that the Bush administration turned its attention to Iraq and “discussions about Afghanistan were constrained. Here’s what you have now, you don’t get anything more. No additional missions, no additional forces, no additional dollars.” This official adds that “the meetings to discuss Afghanistan at the time were best described by a comment Doug Feith made in one meeting, when he said we won the war, other people need to be responsible for Afghanistan now. What he meant was that nation building or postconflict stability operations ought to be taken care of by other governments.… To raise Afghanistan was to talk about what we were leaving undone.” 2006, PP. 154 Entity Tags: Gary C. Schroen, National Security Council, Douglas Feith Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan March 2002: US Military Pulls Elite Special Operations Group from Afghanistan and Redeploys Them to Iraq Fifth Group Special Forces—an elite group whose members speak Arabic, Pashtun, and Dari—is pulled from its mission in Afghanistan and sent to Iraq where the group is assigned the task of locating Saddam Hussein. Members of Fifth Group, who spent six months developing a network of local sources and alliances and who believe they were close to finding Osama bin Laden, are upset with the orders. “We were going nuts on the ground about that decision,” one of them will later recall. 3/26/2004 They are replaced by the Seventh Group Special Forces, who are Spanish speakers experienced mostly in Latin America. They have no local rapport or knowledge. 3/26/2004; NEWSWEEK, 8/28/2007 They are also replaced by the Third Group Special Forces, which is trained to operate in sub-Saharan Africa. They speak French and various African languages. 7/29/2003 CIA official Gary Schroen will later comment, “Well, you could see changes being made in the US military staffing in Afghanistan, that the Green Beret units, the Fifth Special Forces group, for the most of it, were being pulled out to refit and get ready for Iraq. And it was clear that the kind of guys that I think a lot of us believed were essential US military personnel with special operations capabilities were being pulled away.” FRONTLINE, 6/20/2006 Entity Tags: Fifth Group Special Forces, Gary C. Schroen Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, War in Afghanistan See also * Gary Berntsen * Cofer Black * Operation Cyclone * Charlie Wilson's War References * PBS Frontline - The Dark Side: Interview with Gary C. Schroen transcript * Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Presidio Press (May 10, 2005) ISBN 0-89141-872-5. * Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 Penguin Press HC, The (February 23, 2004) ISBN 1-59420-007-6. * Michael Smith, "Killer Elite", St. Martin's Press, (March, 2007) ISBN 978-0-312-36272-0 * Green Berets outfought, outthought the Taliban USA Today January 6, 2002 * SOF Laser Marker (SOFLAM) * Air Strike Coordinators Need Lighter Equipment February 2003 Category:American spies Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:People